The Picaresque Tale

{A bit of mood music for you}

It is difficult for me to think of old school adventure without thinking about the various Appendix N authors, which then leads me to think a lot about the specific works of Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber and the rest, and that leads me to think about the curious word which has typically fallen out of modern use but is the foundational catch-all for the pulpy, strange, and morally gray hijinks which fill the pages of these stories: "picaresque." The dictionary definition for this old Spanish word (originally "picaro") is as follows: 

"Relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero." 

The picaresque tale centers around a wandering individual of low standing who happens into a series of adventures among people of various higher classes, often relying on their wits and a little dishonesty to get by. Barring higher moral design concepts of alignment (law/chaos, good/evil), the majority of the old school adventure game context resides in the picaresque--doing what it takes to outsmart and cajole circumstances into advantages, grabbing loot, pilfering powerful secrets from those in power or those long-dead, and coming out richer, stronger, and probably more broken than you started.

A personal favorite cover and title, especially wed together.

Tolkien-esque fantasy pivots towards grand narratives about justice, deliverance, and heroism, often leading to the defeat of evil for the sake of good, and the characters in these stories are swept up and transformed into "better" forms of their original selves. That's fine and good, and generations of solid RPG content has been inspired by it. But while some minor characters in these grand arcs might be pragmatic survivors, they aren't picaresque stories writ-large.

You know what are? Sword & Sorcery tales.

Cast often in a world rent apart by ancient machinery, fell magicks, and/or intervening monolithic godlings and their schemes (and often multiple times over!), sword & sorcery tales dramatize the high-stakes of personal ambition while also serving up a cold, mostly-dead world which has exactly zero care for the protagonist. You can trust steel, but the arcane is almost always the domain of the twisted and corrupt. You can uplift those around you for the common good, but it will probably get you killed. You can challenge an infamous foe and survive, but you'll come away warped and bent. This is Howard's Cimmeria, where Conan slogged against petty rulers and various snakepeople for profit and renown. This is Vance's Dying Earth, where Cugel "the Clever" (he was a fool, really) crossed through barriers to austere sanctums while his own world rotted and cracked. This is Lieber's Lankhmar, where Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser purloined the wealth of nobility while getting the crap kicked out of them by bruisers and beasts alike. This is where Chun the Unavoidable reminds readers that the unflappable entropy of the universe will never be quenched, abated, or dissuaded from hunting you down and ending you without warning or ceremony.

Picaresque adventure can have its heroic moments, but far more commonly decisions are made out of pragmatism, trickery, and personal gain where any single actor weighs the cost/benefit of what they're up to and opts for the path of least resistance. The classic dungeon delver, if we're honest, is cast more regularly in the sword & sorcery picaresque model than the high-heroic Tolkien paradigm. Don't fight and risk everything, or you'll be extinguished in little time. Negotiate, ally, connive, plan, plot, deceive, haggle, bargain, consider, survive--these are the verbs of the picaresque.

Snakes required. Shirts optional.

The world itself is poised to destroy you, be it by scorching sun, endless desert, whirling snow, uncharted ruin, or winding cavern. The animals are clever and malicious, oversized and vengeful. The seasons are harsh and swiftly-changing, keeping the landscape in dangerous flux. The cities are old, and built on older foundations, with even older empires crumbled further beneath them. Toxic, world-shifting relics and machines lay buried under rough-hewn strata. The sun is dying, or has already died and come back weaker and off-color. The prophecies are tangled and capricious, raising up crooked child prodigies and sundering continents. The seas boil. The mountains groan in the darkness. The plains bake beneath red skies. And yet--and yet!--mankind survives. Man persists, disenchanted with fate and spurred ever forward by the veiled promise of just one more day to live. Feet shuffle forward with arduous, labored steps, but shuffle they do. This is the world of the picaresque.

In order to understand the filthy, amazing, often-shirtless gravitas of sword & sorcery tales, I need simply quote Akiro the Wizard:

"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And onto this, Conan, destined to wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"